Last week, DS7's teacher sent a behavior report home that said that DS7 cannot focus on his work and also hums in the classroom when others are working quietly. From the tone of the report, she was obviously quite frustrated with DS7 when she wrote it.
DS7 admits he has trouble focusing in class. I asked him if he has trouble getting his work done in class. With no other prompt from me, he said the teacher gives him "17-page packets" and it's hard to do the work because he can do it "lickety split without thinking" so he gets distracted by the interesting things to look at in the classroom. I then asked if he gets disracted when he's doing differentiated work. He told me that he has to think when he does that, so he doesn't get distracted.
So, here's my issue. The teacher has provided some in-class differentiation, at our request. She also made a point of telling me sometime after her first differentiation effort that DS7 was the only one in the differentiated group who was unable to even start on the differentiated work -- he said he didn't understand what he was supposed to do, until she sat down with him and walked him through it. We've seen similar things at home: fear of starting the unknown because he might do something wrong, and not really be smart....
I am hoping someone might have some advice on getting these things across to the teacher. I get the impression recently that she thinks we're just some of those pushy parents who think their child is soooo smart. And, it's not that. I don't have test scores for DS7 yet (am still looking for a more economical way to get them before standardized testing in 3rd grade), and DS7 is certainly not the easy-to-spot gifted child that DS9 (DYS) is, but he is definitely beyond what they're doing in class. DS9 brought home his 3rd grade reading workbook (that DS9 has tested out of) and DS7 did some and said it was "soo easy."
So, any ideas on some very diplomatic ways of resolving this issue with the teacher? She's nice, and I believe she does have the children's best interests at heart. I've heard rumors that she's planning to retire this year or next, so I don't know how ambitious she feels about new ideas.
